Tag Archives: account planner

It starts with the intense pressure to move product now (now!), an expression of the short-term thinking that is arguably the cancer of our time. An abundance of information fosters ambivalence over understanding — a sea of survey data, path-to-purchase diagrams and sales analytics. Soon our clients stop seeing their customers as people, their friends or their wife. But, in the end it all comes down to risk. (keep reading on medium.com)

I’ve recently updated my account planning portfolio. It’s still very much a work in progress, but right now it is ready for another round of feedback and criticism. This draft incorporated notes from several planners and focused mostly on presentation. The next step is to take the content and the ideas to the next level.

Yesterday was my first day at Communispace Corporation as an Assistant Consultant for the Idea Group. I’m very excited to join such a great company, and everyone on my team is awesome! I am also lucky to count myself as one of the first new hires in our new space; right downtown on Atlantic Warf in Boston’s very first LEED certified skyscraper.

What does Communispace do? Short answer: qualitative market research via customized online communities (sort of like an online focus group). Better answer: We help brands engage in an ongoing, personal conversation with their customers to gain insights, get feedback and explore consumer mindsets.

Communispace communities offer a place where customers get real, where the information they share can actually make a difference.

What is the Idea Group? We do a lot, but mainly we help maintain best practices throughout the company, we educate client service teams about our client’s business, support new business pitches, existing client accounts, and a lot more (I still have a lot to learn).

We’re on the 6th and 7th floors of the building, and there are no offices — it’s a totally open seating plan. Even our CEO, Diane Hessan, sits in a cubicle with the rest of us.

The whole company is “Boston themed.” Our main lunch room is called Fenway, and it’s modeled after the look of Fenway Park: red brick, green I beams, and we’ve even got a score board and seats designated “The Green Monster.” All the conference rooms are named after landmarks and towns surrounding Boston. Near me I’ve got the Hatch Shell and Boston Garden.

I graduated college with the goal of becoming an account planner at an advertising agency. Communispace is essentially an entire company of planners and I couldn’t be more excited about that. We work with more clients than you can shake a stick at. We’re growing at more than 20% a year and attacking global markets. Most importantly, the peole are great and I’m sure I’m going to have a lot of fun here.

I hopped over to Minneapolis for two days for Planning-ness, a small professional conference for Account Planners.

Two talks from the conference really stuck with me. First, “How to Communicate in a Transmedia World” by Dr Pamela Rutledge, Director of the Media Psychology Research Center. This presentation discussed storytelling from the brain’s point of view and I was reminded of the discussions of theory and cognitive science that initially peaked my interest in account planning.

Second “How to use production as strategy, and other contradictions of making modern brands” by Adrian Ho, Partner at Zeus Jones was equally standout. This talk discussed the idea that marketing projects shouldn’t be bound by the same ridged structure as say, a construction project. It was amazing to see the highly creative work that came from a design as you go strategy.

Though time was tight, I also couldn’t help but head over to the consumer mecca of the country, The Mall of America. My favorite things were the indoor rollar coasters and the huge lego statues.

From Troy Michigan to Mid-Town Manhattan, milk men are making a comeback. But home delivery is just part of a larger trend of people going local, and it’s starting to go big. Post-recession many attitudes have reset, and a growing number of people are becoming increasingly concerned about the health of the products they buy, the environmental impact of their lives and feel genuinely good about supporting local businesses and organizations.

It all started with food. And, while organic food has recently made it onto most grocery store shelves, the movement originally developed from locally oriented co-ops and communities supporting independent organic farmers. People concerned with natural food have been shopping at farm stands for years, and for this community local is a part of their DNA. And, now that organic has become mainstream these core values are making their way into the popular consciousness along with the products themselves.

The perceived benefits of shopping locally go beyond concerns of quality and freshness. The trend appeals to their attitudes about the importance of community and living green. Shopping locally mitigates the environmental impact of moving food thousands of miles and thus concerns about carbon footprints. It also fulfills a desire to support small farmers and the local economy. These “localvores” find practical and emotional benefits buying local.

But, local isn’t just for fruit stands and apple picking. A new and unlikely champion of the local movement, Walmart is stepping up its efforts to support locally grown food in order to compete with stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Aggressively supporting not only organic, but local farms as well, “Walmart says it wants to revive local economies and communities that lost out when agriculture became centralized in large states.” With major support like this, the local movement has serious potential for scale.

Beyond the dinner table initiatives are gaining ground encouraging consumers to buy locally grown goods and services. Earlier this year Business Week wrote that, “About 130 cities or regions now host ‘buy local’ groups, representing about 30,000 businesses, up from 41 in 2006.” Fueling this growth are organizations such as Local First, the 3/50 Project (begun just last March) and 10Percentshift.org, which aim to educate consumers about thinking locally with their wallets and the big impact that small shifts in spending can have on their towns and neighborhoods.

Local is making waves in politics as well. A recent Zogby poll found that “52% [of people] paid the same amount of attention to local and national races,” and groups like Tea Party and Coffee Party USA show it’s clear people getting engaged, too. Spreading online, these organizations are growing locally with chapters and meetings in towns and cities across America.

Finally, from organic tea to tea parties, localvores and local activists may be more plugged in than you think. A recent study by Pew Internet suggests that, contrary to popular belief, “many internet technologies are used as much for local contact as they are for distant communication.” Further, evidence shows a strong correlation between digital literacy and local engagement that’s becoming increasingly apparent among young people, indicating some serious potential for continued growth. It’s no secrete that services like CoupMe, Boston Tweet, Yelp and Four Square are making a serious impact by re-connecting people to their neighborhoods.

Implications for Brands:
1. Consumer’s have a new definition of healthy food. Beyond quality they are concerned with the health of the environment and their local economies.
2. Localvores derive real satisfaction from “living responsibly” and have a strong desire for community involvement.
3. Larger brands may find it particularly difficult to establish authentic and believable associations with locally minded consumers.
4. People are finding new ways to translate their virtual communities into real life groups, thus one of the best ways to reach locally minded consumers may be through Google and online forums.